Honeymoon in Rio de Janeiro: Ipanema Sunset

Last night I realized I hadn’t finished showing you guys our honeymoon photos from Rio.

The photos today are very special to me.

Here’s the story behind them: Jorge and I had just been through one of the worst days of our lives as we missed our flight back to Mexico. I’d spent all morning crying at the airport and making desperate phone calls, then we went back to our vacation apartment for an afternoon nap. We woke up late afternoon, still with no idea how or when we were going to get home, and walked out toward Ipanema because that’s where the Subway shop was (extra vacation days = poor).

When I saw the sunset on Ipanema Beach, I knew that this was the reason we’d missed our flight. God wanted us to see this…

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Rio de Janeiro Honeymoon: Copacabana

We’ve been back from Rio de Janeiro since Wednesday, after a fun night sleeping in a dirty restaurant booth at the airport, followed by a 9 1/2 hour flight. Good times. (This bad attitude is exactly why I could never be a backpacker… or go camping.) Can’t complain too much, though, because our airfare from Mexico to Brazil was free! (Best. Deal. Ever.)

Now that we’re settled back into Cancun, I can go ahead and start showing photos of our belated honeymoon!

In Rio de Janeiro, we stayed in the Copacabana neighborhood right on the beach. Most hotels were fairly expensive despite not being very exciting-looking, and even a private room at a hostel would have run us upward of $80 US a night several blocks from the beach, and most were booked up. We were very lucky to find out about Gringo Management, who has many apartments for rent in the Copacabana and Ipanema areas for very cheap. Our apartment was on the 12th floor of an apartment building just half a block from the beach, for only $75 US a night! It looked recently redone, plus it had ocean views, Wi-Fi, cable TV, a kitchenette and a small but nice bathroom. We were pretty impressed with it. (Didn’t take any pictures of it, though… oops!)

The view from our window

Our first day in Rio, we spent the whole afternoon walking up and down the boardwalk. It’s a very long boardwalk and it took quite a few hours! The beach and boardwalk were packed that day because apparently it’s a holiday in Brazil. The main road (Avenida Atlantica) had been closed to traffic to allow for more pedestrians. It was a pretty awesome way to start our vacation! After a long walk, we fell asleep on the beach. (Hey, we were tired!)

We didn’t take any photos our first day because we wanted to just take it all in, but here are some photos of the Copacabana neighborhood from other days:

Overall we really enjoyed staying in Copacabana, especially on the busier holidays and weekend. The mountain views from the beach were amazing, especially after years in the flat, flat terrain of the Yucatan Peninsula. (**This was the first time Jorge had ever seen mountains.**) There were also tons of cool little bars along the boardwalk, where I ordered mostly caipirinhas and pizza!

In a few days I’ll blog about our morning at Christ the Redeemer! Stay tuned…